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Annabeth would later reflect on this and realize Poseidon had intervened to help his son. But at the moment, she was sure it was a coincidence that she found herself stumbling across Percy. New York City was a big place. The chances of them running into each other were incredibly low, yet here she was.
She had her backpack hanging over her back as she walked toward the milkshake shop she liked. She had plenty of times to get back to school before she’d get in trouble, so she wasn’t walking all too fast. Which was why she had the time to look around and hesitate at the sight of a Cyclops loitering near a shawarma place. He wasn’t doing anything sinister, instead just shuffling his feet and blinking his one eye at the mortals that didn’t even give him a second look.
Reaching for her dagger, she pulled it out of its hiding place and edged closer to the Cyclops. He noticed her eventually, his eye zeroing in on her and the weapon she was holding. He had a hammer strapped to his waist which he could probably fight with, but he didn’t move to use it. Instead, he turned around and started sprinting away.
Not wasting a moment, Annabeth chased after him. She wasn’t sure what he was doing, but she wasn’t going to just let this Cyclops wander around without checking to see where his loyalties lay. If he was on Kronos’s side, she’d kill him before he could do any harm. And if he wasn’t… well, there were still bad Cyclopes. Not everyone was as nice as Tyson. She was slightly more open to the possibility, but that didn’t mean she was about to forget about the incident with the Cyclops that had led her and friends astray and had made it so that Thalia nearly died.
They ran through the city, with the Cyclops sending looks over his shoulder at Annabeth every now and then. She huffed as they turned another corner and she bumped into a lady with a stroller. Muttering an apology, she renewed her run. She had to get to the Cyclops. She wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, but he was clearly up to something, so she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Eventually, the Cyclops entered an alleyway, Annabeth following close behind. It was a small space between two buildings, a few windows overlooking it. It was a dead end, blocked by a brick wall. Dumpsters lined the wall, with a bunch of trash spread across the floor, like people were too lazy to put their waste in the trash.
But there was no Cyclops in the small space. Instead, the one Annabeth found standing there was Percy with his sword drawn out. He had one hand on the wall of one of the buildings, like he was grounding himself with it. His other one, with the sword, was trembling a little. His eyes were squinted and unfocused as he turned his head in every direction, an odd mix of trepidation and anger visible on his face.
“Percy?” she said.
He didn’t react.
“Percy!” she repeated louder.
His head kept on swiveling all around, his sword held before him in a protective way, as if to try and make sure no one could get close to him. His eyes must have passed right over her a bunch of times, yet there was no sign of recognition on his face. He didn’t even seem to be able to see her. Experimentally moving the hand he had on the wall just a little, Percy’s frown deepened and Annabeth thought she could hear him cursing under his breath.
Furrowing her eyebrows, she took a step closer to her friend, all thoughts of that Cyclops evaporating from her mind. She tilted her head at the lack of a reaction from Percy to her presence. He didn’t seem to hear her footsteps, no matter how loud they were. Nor could he see her. It was like he was completely blind and deaf to everything around him.
“What happened?” she mumbled, mostly to herself.
She made the mistake of reaching out for him. Her fingers barely brushed against his arm, but Percy whirled around in an instant and swung his sword at her. Annabeth managed to raise her dagger just in time to save her face from getting cut. Grunting a little from the effort, she grumbled in exasperation.
She and Percy must have sparred hundreds of times before, training together at camp—either by themselves or with some of their friends. They were almost always equally as good. It was impossible to tell who would win each round. They had different styles. Not to mention the fact that they usually used different weapons. But Annabeth knew, logically, that neither one of them had ever gone all out during their spars. They never went down easily, but they never really fought like their lives depended on it.
And she’d gone on quests with Percy and fought beside him enough times to know that when he went all out, it was usually scary to watch. The guy looked unassuming and she could see the way his opponents underestimated him again and again, leading to their defeat. Even on their first quest, with no more than two weeks of training to go off of, Percy had been capable enough to win a duel against a god.
Now, facing him when he wasn’t holding back because he clearly couldn’t tell who was standing before him, Annabeth found herself worrying. She forgot for a moment that Percy wasn’t going to take it easy on her now. She wasn’t sure why he seemed to be unable to hear and see, but without his two senses, he couldn’t tell he was facing off against a friend rather than foe, so he was going all out, lashing out with his sword blindly like his life was on the line.
“Percy!” she cried when she managed to deflect a slash of Riptide by the skin of her teeth. “Stop! Stop, it’s me!”
It was no use. He clearly couldn’t hear a word she was saying.
For someone who couldn’t see where his opponent was, Percy was surprisingly accurate. Even when Annabeth tried to move, he managed to follow her direction, like he could sense her. She yelped when he managed to trip her up. She fell to the ground with a thud and instantly brought up her knife to block Riptide. She gritted her teeth as she kept Percy’s sword from cutting her in half. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold this up for long—maybe in the past she’d been stronger than him, but Percy grew up, trained and fought monsters enough to develop some muscles.
“You’re—ugh—making this harder than it should be, Seaweed Brain,” she grunted.
He didn’t react. Just kept on pressing Riptide down toward her face. Annabeth figured he was aware of the fact that she wasn’t mortal, at least. His sword would have done nothing had she been a regular mortal, so at least Percy knew he wasn’t attacking an innocent bystander. Granted, she wasn’t his enemy, but he knew she was someone from their crazy world. She couldn’t really fault him for panicking and instantly trying to defend himself from an unknown threat.
But gods, she needed to let him know who she was before he managed to actually hurt or kill her. He would never forgive himself if he knew he’d hurt her; Annabeth was sure of it.
Taking a risk, Annabeth took a hand off the hilt of her knife and reached out for one of Percy’s hands. He flinched when she tried to uncurl his fingers from around Riptide. His eyebrows furrowed as he struggled against her, still pressing down with his sword. But after a moment he bit his lip and eased up a little as he allowed Annabeth to drag his hand away. Maybe he was curious to know what was going on. Maybe he realized there was a chance she wasn’t an enemy.
Either way, Annabeth made sure not to move her dagger away so Percy wouldn’t rake open her face. She slowly pulled his hand closer and then let his fingers rest over the beads strung on her camp necklace. His face contorted in confusion as he let his fingers run over them cautiously. For what felt like forever he didn’t seem to understand what her point was. And then his lips parted and the pressure he was putting on her disappeared.
Stepping back a little, Percy let Riptide hang by his side as he pulled his free hand close to his chest. He experimentally felt his own camp beads. Annabeth watched him somewhat warily, panting and brushing hair out of her face. She stood back up slowly and carefully stared at Percy as his expression changed from hostile to confused and finally to somewhat relieved.
“You’re from camp,” he breathed, his voice quiet and unsure.
He couldn’t hear himself. He was probably consciously trying not to speak too loudly, which led to him using a very small tone of voice. Annabeth wasn’t used to this tone coming from her friend, but she brushed it aside. That wasn’t important right now. She needed to help Percy. She wasn’t even sure how long he’d been here like this, blind and deaf to the world all by himself.
“I’m going to help you,” she promised as she hesitantly put a hand on his arm.
Percy flinched mildly, then seemed to force himself to relax. But he still looked on edge, staring ahead blankly with a crease between his brows and a downturn to his mouth. Right, because while he figured the person with him was from Camp Half-Blood, it could still be literally anyone. It wasn’t necessarily Annabeth.
Shifting her grip on her dagger, Annabeth hesitated for a second, then carefully handed it to her friend. He frowned when he felt the hilt of the weapon nudging him, but obliged and took it regardless of his confusion. He tilted his head to the side as he turned the knife in his hand. It took him less time to react than it did with the beads. He barely had the knife in his hold for two seconds before he gasped.
“Annabeth?” he said hopefully.
She replied by squeezing his arm a little.
Finally, his stance shifted as he calmed down. Handing her the dagger back, he capped Riptide and put the pen in his pocket. She had the feeling he wouldn’t have done this with anyone else around—maybe except for his mother or Grover. It made her smile to herself, glad he couldn’t see how much it meant to her that he felt safe with her enough to put away his weapon when he was so susceptible to an attack.
With all of his defenses and hostility gone, all that was left behind was Percy’s fear. He looked so helpless and anxious, standing there without two of his senses. His hands were trembling just a tad, his breaths short and flat. His eyes blindly looked every which way, as if searching for something they would be able to focus on. He felt with his hand until he found the wall of a building behind him. Using it for direction, he sank to the ground, leaned his back against the wall and then pulled his legs to his chest and leaned his forehead on his knees.
Annabeth crouched in front of him, her chest squeezing. He looked so small and lost like this.
He mumbled something, the words muffled as he spoke to his knees. Annabeth nudged him lightly to get him to say it more clearly. The exasperated huff he let out in response made her roll her eyes fondly.
“I may have… accidentally,” he stressed, “um… irritated Aphrodite.”
“What?” she demanded. When she remembered he couldn’t hear her, she slapped his shoulder instead.
Percy scrunched up his nose. “Yeah, yeah, I know. What can I say? I have a knack for pissing off the gods.”
“You don’t say…”
“She just ambushed me on my way back from school and said something about how I was frustrating her, I think. I don’t know. She was kind of distracting,” he admitted sheepishly.
Annabeth pressed her lips tightly together and resisted the urge to smack Percy again. Maybe he could feel her disdain anyway, because he shifted a little further away from her with a look of apprehension and embarrassment on his face that he aimed at a dumpster slightly off to Annabeth’s right.
Clearing his throat awkwardly, Percy continued. “Anyway, she said I wasn’t using my senses right anyway, so why not take them away completely. I’m not sure when exactly it happened. It feels like hours ago, but I can’t really tell like this.” He waved a hand in front of his eyes for emphasis. Then he sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. “Maybe Aphrodite is, like, bipolar.”
“Are you trying to anger her even more?” she said harshly, glancing around anxiously to make sure the goddess wasn’t showing up to punish Percy any further. “Besides, sounds like she has a point there. You’re the most obtuse person I’ve ever met in my life, Percy.”
He started drumming his fingers on his knee, oblivious to her words. There was a thoughtful expression on his face as he stared unseeingly at the dumpster. When he didn’t say anything for a long moment, she tapped his arm lightly, questioningly.
Percy didn’t flinch this time. “I met her on our quest to save you and Artemis. I haven’t mentioned it before, have I?”
She sat down more comfortably, staring at him in confusion. No, he hadn’t mentioned meeting the goddess of love before. Annabeth didn’t know much about that quest, really. Percy had looked so relieved to have her back afterward, she never really bothered broaching the subject with him. She simply basked in the warm, fuzzy feeling she got from the knowledge that he looked so happy and content because she was by his side again.
“She seemed to like me back then, though,” he added. Scuffing his shoe against the dingy pavement, he huffed. “This would have been so much easier had she actually told me what I did to upset her in the first place.”
Annabeth stared at him and gulped. She didn’t think it was hard to understand what Aphrodite might have against Percy now. The goddess was all about love, right? And after the quest through Daedalus’s labyrinth, Annabeth figured even she grew frustrated with Percy’s obliviousness to everything going on around him.
Heart thumping in her chest, she bit the inside of her cheek and told herself she might be wrong. What if she was understanding it all falsely? What if she was projecting? Not to mention how there was always the possibility that Aphrodite wanted Percy to end up with Rachel, not her. She’d apparently talked to Percy on his quest to find her on Mount Othrys, but that was also the quest when he’d run into Rachel for the first time, wasn’t it?
She let her eyes drink in the sight of him. He looked miserable and upset and so incredibly done with everything right now, but there was also the evident trust he had in her painted all over his features. He was weaponless, completely open for an attack. He wasn’t feeling around to try and make sure Annabeth was still there; like the idea that she might abandon him hadn’t even crossed his mind. His eyes glided right over her without seeing a thing, which felt like a symbolism she could have lived without.
Was he even aware of any of this? She figured he knew he trusted her that much, but probably not much more than that. After all, Aphrodite wouldn’t have done any of this to him had he been able to deal with his own emotions by himself. But was he actively avoiding thinking about what was happening or was he just oblivious to his own feelings? Was he conflicted or just so thick, he couldn’t see there was something going on?
A part of her was still incredulous at the fact that he had never mentioned the kiss at Hephaestus’s forge. As obtuse as Percy was, there was no way he was that oblivious, right? Annabeth just couldn’t make herself believe he actually had no idea that a girl kissing him meant she liked him. And in that case, was he choosing not to bring it up out of reluctance to let her down or was he not approaching the subject because he was just too hesitant?
Did he like Rachel? Did he like Rachel more than he liked her? They haven’t known each other as well as Annabeth and Percy did, but that didn’t mean anything. The two of them became close friends after one quest, after all. Anything could happen. And Annabeth couldn’t really force Percy to like her more if he didn’t want to.
But gods, it would drive her insane if he suddenly started going out with Rachel.
Sighing deeply, she shook her head and muttered, “Oh, Percy, what have you gotten yourself into?”
He kept on tapping his knee.
“Okay,” she muttered to herself, trying to gather her thoughts. “Okay. Aphrodite punished you for being blind and deaf to obvious things, right? So, hypothetically, she would remove this curse once you become aware of what’s happening.”
Percy brushed the hair from his eyes. She had to resist the urge to snort in amusement at the sight of him waving his hand in front of his face a few times, a frown forming on his face. When he brought his hand back down, he started tapping his foot on the ground, looking like he was growing anxious again.
Moving carefully, Annabeth took a seat next to Percy, brushing her arm against his to let him know where she was. He twisted his head in her direction and hummed a little but didn’t react otherwise. She thought she could see a spark of gratefulness in his eye, though. It probably helped that he could feel her presence beside him, even if he already knew she was right there.
“How am I supposed to make you see things you can’t even see when you can use your eyes?” she said irritably. “You can’t even hear me.”
As if to prove her point, he said, “You got something to eat?”
With an eyeroll, Annabeth unzipped her backpack and rummaged through it. She found a bag of jelly beans near the bottom. It wasn’t actually food, but it was better than nothing. And she really couldn’t tell how long Percy’s been stuck here by himself. So she pulled out the bag and put it in his hand.
Straightening his legs, Percy felt the bag with his fingers, then opened it and grinned as he fished out a jelly bean. Muttering a quiet “Thank you,” he tossed it in his mouth and closed his eyes contentedly. Annabeth was glad he couldn’t see the smile that crept onto her face at his simple joy from something as small as a snack.
“You’re a hopeless case, Seaweed Brain,” she told him exasperatedly.
He hummed, swallowed, and said, “I can tell you’re talking. Your body is vibrating a bit when you do.”
Great. That he noticed.
“You know how Aphrodite looks different for everyone who looks at her?” he asked suddenly. After a short pause, he added, “Tap once for ‘yes’.”
She thought back to the summer solstice, when they’d gone to Olympus after saving Artemis. Aphrodite had been there, sitting on her throne with a content smile on her face for the most part. Annabeth remembered trying to avoid looking directly at her after realizing the goddess reminded her of Percy way too much.
Thanking the gods that Percy couldn’t see the way her face heat up, she tapped his thigh once.
He chewed another jelly bean, then timidly said, “She looks like the people you find attractive, right?”
Another tap.
His cheeks flushed. “Figured.”
Her breath caught in her throat when she realized Aphrodite had probably reminded him of someone. Someone specific, if his question and reaction were anything to go by. And okay, yes, she knew the chances of him actually telling her who it was were low because… it was a private thing. But she was curious. She wanted to know if she was even just a fleeting thought in his head. Was there even one brief moment when the goddess had reminded Percy of her?
Before she could talk herself out of it, she grabbed his hand, turned his palm upward and started drawing letters on his skin.
“Hey, wha—” he started, then fell silent once he realized what she was doing. He frowned in concentration, guessing the letters out loud for her confirmation. “’W’? Yes, okay. Um… ‘n’? Not ‘n’. Er… is it ‘b’? No, ‘h’! Right. ‘W’, ‘h’. ‘C’? No, no, it’s ‘o’!” For a moment longer he looked confused, then his face turned a deeper shade of red. “Who? You’re kidding!”
Well, she did expect this sort of reaction.
Snatching his hand back, he filled with mouth with jelly beans and muttered, “An actress I used to have a crush on in fifth grade.”
“You’re being difficult on purpose,” she grumbled. As if sensing her words, Percy stuck his tongue out in her direction. The jelly beans left it tinted with different colors. “Come on, Aphrodite wants you to figure this kind of stuff out. So you need to actually help me out here!”
He held up a jelly bean and sniffed it suspiciously. “I feel like you forget I can’t hear you, Wise Girl. Is this one blue? It doesn’t smell blue…”
She had no idea what blue jelly beans smelled like but Percy was right. She tapped his thigh twice and sighed deeply at his smug smirk. He dropped the bean back into the bag and looked for a blue one.
Once he found one, Annabeth once again snatched Percy’s hand. She wrinkled her nose at the mildly sticky feeling from the jelly beans. Well, she’d dealt with worse. This time as she spelled on his hand, Percy looked more apprehensive than he did before, like he was expecting another intimate question from her. But while he didn’t look happy by the time she was done, he didn’t try to pull his hand away again.
“Wait, you think Aphrodite is upset because I haven’t told someone I like them?” he spluttered. “Does she have nothing better to do? She never did anything like this to Beckendorf when he wouldn’t ask out Silena.”
Annabeth didn’t reply. The goddess’s fixation on Percy was weird. Knowing she’d talked to him before today only made her curiosity regarding the goddess and Percy rise. She had no idea why Aphrodite was that invested in her friend’s love life, and she figured it was probably not the best sign. And, of course, Annabeth was slightly anxious at the thought that maybe Aphrodite’s plans for Percy didn’t actually include her.
“So… hypothetically, if I confess to someone that I like them, you think Aphrodite will return my senses back to normal?” he asked nervously.
Hesitantly, Annabeth tapped his thigh.
Percy turned away from her and glared at the opposite wall. He had the kind of expression on his face that usually meant he was going to get himself in trouble with another god. And considering he was already dealing with one such thing, Annabeth hoped he wasn’t going to make matters even worse. Although she wasn’t going to blame him for being upset with this whole situation.
Even if she did think Aphrodite’s frustration with Percy was somewhat justified, she would have been more than angry had she been forced to confess her feelings to someone like that.
“Oh, come on…” he grumbled. “It’s like I have a beacon over my head to let the gods know they should mess with me.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. They did all seem rather intent on messing up his day whenever they could. Even if she was sure not all of them were malicious. Maybe it had something to do with the Great Prophecy. She hated thinking about it because it made a lump form in her throat, but she figured the hero of the prophecy would surely gain the attention of the gods, one way or another. And so far, Percy seemed to be at the center or just about everything.
She was pulled out of her thoughts at the feeling of Percy shifting beside her. When she looked over at him, she was surprised to see he was sliding a little to the side to put some space between them. Her eyebrows sank in confusion and trepidation at the action. What was he doing? What was he thinking about? Who was he thinking about?
“Fine, whatever,” he muttered tightly. “Can you just… not punch me after I say this?”
Annabeth’s lips twisted down but he couldn’t see it. Was he going to tell her he was into Rachel? Because she would most definitely punch him for that. Gods, if his senses would come back after confessing for liking someone else, Annabeth would claw someone’s eyes out. Maybe his. Maybe Percy’s crush. Maybe both.
Probably in order to stall, Percy grumbled, “The fact that we’re hoping a goddess is listening to this makes this so much worse.” He grimaced when Annabeth nudged his side. “Easy for you to say. You don’t need to do anything to appease a crazy goddess.”
Lightning lit the sky and the sound of thunder followed soon after. Percy didn’t react in the least, but Annabeth sent the heavens a worried look before once again turning to look at her friend. She found him once again leaning his chin on his knees, his arms wrapped around his legs to keep them in place. She had the feeling he was doing the best to protect himself, even though what he was about to say was going to leave him open emotionally rather than physically. The jelly beans’ bag leaned on his ankle.
“Okay, so… remember how Thalia and Grover told you I kinda went insane after Thorn kidnapped you?” he said with fake levity, that grimace still on his face. He didn’t wait for a response, obviously. “I guess they weren’t really exaggerating or anything. I was about to jump off that cliff after you before Artemis stopped me. And I went to ask the Oracle how to save you. And I was absolutely going to level the forest at camp because Thalia called me Seaweed Brain, which was not cool.”
Her jaw slowly started to fall as he talked. True, their friends had told Annabeth that her disappearance hadn’t been easy for them to handle, and Thalia and Grover had insinuated that it had affected Percy possibly slightly more than them. But they never really expanded on that, clearly happy to put it behind them. And Percy had obviously not gone in length into how that whole thing had influenced him. He really didn’t open up much about things, if you thought about it too hard.
So to hear that he’d wanted to nosedive off a cliff after her was startling. To learn that he’d asked the Oracle—the creepy mummy Annabeth knew had given him nightmares—what he could possibly do voluntarily was astonishing. To realize that he’d lost his tempter because someone else used her nickname for him during an incident that the campers kept on referring to with reverent fear was overwhelmingly devastating.
She wished she could have been there to help somehow, although had she been there, none of this would have happened in the first place. While the idea that Percy had reacted so much to her kidnapping was theoretically flattering, Annabeth felt nothing but sympathetic toward him. She could imagine she would have gone out of her mind with worry had the roles been reversed.
Still unseeingly staring at the opposite wall, Percy went on. “And, like, I wasn’t technically supposed to go on that quest with them because I forgot to actually volunteer to join and Zoë really didn’t want me to come. But I followed them anyway ‘cause I knew you were in trouble and it didn’t feel right not to go. And then we ran into Aphrodite, who wanted to talk to me.”
Annabeth’s eyes widened a little as she realized what he was getting at. Heart thundering, she said, “Percy—”
He couldn’t hear her. “And she didn’t really seem to care much about the fact that Artemis was missing. She just sort of kept on telling me the Hunters were my enemies. I’m not really sure what her deal was. I think at some point she said she wished all her daughters could break my heart, which was… not as endearing as she made it sound. She did tell me she made sure I would be on the quest. She wanted me to come after you. Made me admit I wasn’t there for Artemis, too.”
A smile tugged at her lips. She stared at the flustered expression on Percy’s face as he kept on talking quickly, like the words burned his tongue. His feet started tapping on the ground again. She rescued the bag of jelly beans before he could accidentally stomp on it. And all the while her chest grew warmer and her stomach started fluttering.
He hasn’t mentioned Rachel once. Like she hasn’t even crossed his mind.
“And…” He paused for a second to wet his lips and anxiously ponder something. Then he continued, his voice even more pensive than it was a moment before. “Look, I thought things would change. After the Mount St. Helens… incident.” He shuddered, like the memory of the mountain erupting was still fresh in his mind. “But the only thing that seemed to change was that you were more upset with me than ever before and I’m… I’m not sure why.”
His voice cracked a little at that last word.
Calypso. Rachel. The stupid looming Great Prophecy. Annabeth had a bunch of reasons for being so stressed out and irritable.
Although… well, Percy didn’t know what the prophecy had in store for him, so he couldn’t possibly know what Annabeth was worried about. And he didn’t seem to realize Rachel was into him or that Annabeth was—maybe—a little threatened by her. And he hadn’t really brought Calypso up, having never told her and Chiron explicitly where he’d landed after blowing up Hephaestus’s forge.
Okay, maybe Annabeth should have known Percy wouldn’t understand why she was extremely on edge around him.
“You keep on proving the nickname Seaweed Brain fits you perfectly,” she chuckled.
“Again, I can feel you talking,” he said. “Are you laughing at me?”
She responded by grabbing his hand (he flinched at the unexpected touch but then relaxed again) and lacing their fingers together. Percy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise and his mouth gaped a tad before he quickly schooled his expression. A hesitant, satisfied smile crossed his face.
Narrowing his eyes a little at nothing in particular and tipping his head to the side, Percy asked, “Who did Aphrodite remind you of?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me,” she scoffed.
“Huh?”
She sighed, turned over his hand and once again spelled the word ‘who’ on his palm.
He swallowed audibly and said, “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
Annabeth laughed. Probably capable of telling she was laughing but not what made her laugh, Percy twitched a little and bounced his legs with more vigor. He only seemed to relax a little once more at the feeling of her spelling ‘ok’ against his skin.
“You first,” he told her.
She simply drew the letter ‘u’ in reply.
“You want me to go first?” he asked warily.
Two taps on his wrist. A crease formed between his eyebrows before his face cleared and his mouth fell open once again. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether to grin brightly or hide his face in his knees in embarrassment. He settled on smiling at the opposite wall and once again lacing their hands together.
Nudging his foot, Annabeth held her breath as she waited for him to take his turn. She knew what his answer was going to be. She didn’t really need him to tell her anything. But a confirmation would be nice. Plus, she wasn’t going to be the only one to reveal this despite knowing it should have been more than obvious already.
Instead of saying anything, Percy just turned his head toward her, the smile still in place. His eyes were clearly still not working because he wasn’t focused on her. But he was close enough. And she received the message either way. There was no mistaking the soft look in his sea-green eyes or the telling blush creeping up his cheeks.
Feeling lighter than she had in months, Annabeth leaned forward and kissed him.
The first time Annabeth kissed Percy, it had been brief and flitting—over before she could even wrap her head around what she was doing. She remembered doing it without fully comprehending what exactly her body was doing, and then she’d put on her hat and lingered for a second to see the stunned, ecstatic and bashful expression on Percy’s face.
This time seemed to have caught him by surprise, too. She couldn’t really blame him—not like he could see or hear her coming closer to him. But this time they didn’t have any telkhines after them, nor were they on a life-threatening quest to save the camp. So Annabeth didn’t need to back away instantly and leave Percy floundering. So, after a moment that felt like an eternity, he kissed her back hesitantly.
Was it stupid that a simple peck—just a fluttering sensation that lasted only a couple of seconds—could make her feel this jubilant? Probably. She could imagine some of the Aphrodite kids mocking her for getting excited over such a small thing.
But it’s Percy, she reasoned. Everything involving Percy instantly became a hundred percent more exciting than it would have been without him. So, really, it made perfect sense that she felt this joyous and happy and thrilled right now. It was sound logic. Plus, she’d waited so long for this to happen—ever since she was twelve, which felt like a lifetime ago—that now that the moment was finally here, she could finally breathe again and sigh in relief and content.
Heart hammering against her ribs and blood rushing through her veins, Annabeth leaned back and looked at Percy. His face was a bright red, but he also had a beaming grin on his face and his eyes were twinkling lively. A few strands of black hair once again fell into them, but he didn’t seem to mind as he kept on looking at Annabeth happily.
Wait.
He seemed to notice the change too, because his perked up even more, eyes widening a fraction and one hand coming up to rub his ear.
“Hey, Wise Girl,” he said. “Long time no see.”
“Very funny, Percy.” She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “Can you please stop pissing off gods? Especially when you’re by yourself. At least do it when I’m around to make sure you don’t die.”
“Er, no promises.”